Lenovo Yoga trumps iPad in latest ad from Microsoft

Microsoft has been firing all cylinders lately when it comes to advertisements. The past six months we’ve seen the ads steadily getting better and better. Who can forget the wedding video with iPhone users pitted against Android folks? Lately they’ve had a series of videos that directly compare the iPad head-to-head against a variety of machines running Windows. Here’s one with the Lenovo Yoga.

It’s a pretty humorous video that certainly shows the strengths of devices like the Yoga. With the Yoga you get the best of both tablets and laptops. Keyboard included for when it comes time for work – like in a lecture in college.

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Lenovo Yoga trumps iPad in latest ad from Microsoft

Yep. Great ad. As far as Haswell is concerned: The Dell XPS 12 has been upgraded to Haswell (gets an additional 2.5 hrs) and is a similar device to the Lenovo Yoga. The Yoga gets pretty good battery life by laptop standards though and is now very inexpensive at $799 (color) or $729 (silver)

I have the I7 Lenovo Twist nice bit of kit tbh maybe not the best screen in the world but does the job. I do wonder though how long before the twist mechanism breaks. Luckily as its a Lenovo it will last longer than had anybody else tried it :)

I swear that was a familiar scene for me a class I am taking. 2 adults with iPads, opened up the book on the web and had to keep double tapping home button to switch to the notepad app to take notes. It was hilarious

This happened to me in multiple classes last semester where I had my surface RT and there were three students with their ipads (two with those folio cases, one sans keyboard and one tapping on the screen with it flat). As soon as I pulled out my surface, propped the kickstand and unleashed the keyboard i had classmates walking over to check it out and try typing on it. Can't wait to do this come september with the RT again or my new yoga 13.

You see it all the time, people with their iPads on Tabs think they are so cool cos they can browse the web, check their emails and play Cut the Rope. And you know, fair enough for that, it's amazing. As soon as they want to reply to a post online, or an email or do any work, their gadgets are shown up as toys and gimmicks. As I say for what they are good at tablets are amazing, but apart from a few great apps on the iPad (dj apps for instance) Windows tablets are the future. Just need to get a few more metro apps and 8.1 out there so that the future can happen sooner mind you...

It's up to Lenovo to promote their own device. Micorosft is promoting windows and the various hybrid device that windows makes possible. They are promoting their ecosystem. THat's why there have been several of these commercials with a different device in each one.

I like, though I find it amusing that our Lenovo student leaves Wordament up as the main app. It might have been a little more effective to have had OneNote be more prominent than it is. Hope to see this coming to TV.

Actually they should bring neither, and instead pay attention to the lecturer. This video illustrates a dystopian view of education that would be no better if everyone in the room had one of these Yoga things. Tablets, laptops, phones, etc are rife with distractions that all too easily ruin things for all parties involved.

People can, but they don't. Haven't been to college in a while, but been in plenty of meetings where a laptop (or phone) is a huge distraction. It's one thing to bring it to take notes; it's another thing to be checking email and doing other work when you're supposed to be participating in the meeting. I can only assume a college student could be just as distracted.

Not really the laptop's fault, but the people not knowing how to be courteous with them.

this is so true... not only in school, but for example, last time i went to church after some years, and it was so uncomfortable people turning their tablets or phones, scrolling, swiping... and it just felt like people focused more their technology than listen to people talking in this case about religion, and it felt like just not the same as books and writing in a notepad.
In school is kinda like the same... sometimesyou can tell they dont even try to type what the professor says, since typing in a laptop and more in a touchscreen is slower than pen and paper. but guess thats how humans like to do things, you know, sometimes it feels they just go because they can go, and not because they want to really learn and listen.
Maybe im technophobic in the end :D and I like old way of learning things.

People with good typing speed can type considerably faster on a keyboard than they can write. Though I would choose writing with a pencil over taking notes on a touch screen any day (which is why I appreciate the Type Cover).

Actually, as it turns out, students don't do any better or worse when taking notes with a laptop or tablet. You pay more attention when taking notes with paper but your notes are more clear, better organized,more easily accessible and shareable when using a laptop. I can't find a link to the study but I remember seeing this around.

As a comp sci major (c/o 2005) I had a bunch of classes both in front of desktops (Windows NT!!) and with just paper. I tended to do better in the classes where I took notes on the desktop.

You should take a tour of your local school. White boards connected to computers (so the contents can be printed, in color, no less), desktop computers (gradually being replaced by less bulky forms), laptops, tablets (almost always iPads). Some schools give every new student a tablet or laptop preloaded with digital copies of the textbooks, because that's cheaper than buying the textbooks in book form.

Problem is you've made no point. Whether you are taking notes electronically or by hand you are not paying full attention. What you should do is record the lecture and pay 100% attention then take your notes from the recording. However, most people don't do that and if you're quick at typing doing it electronically is more efficient.

It all depends on the person. Sometimes I found mostly ignoring the lecture in favor of reading the textbook in class to be a much better way to learn the material. If the tests are open book, this is definitely the way to go.

I just think a lecture room of people on laptops is a horrible thing. Mainly because I think if I was presenting I would hate to be doing it do a room of people clicking away on a PC. If you are taking notes on paper you are obviously listening; if you are behind a screen, what is to say you aren't playing Wordament or sending emails like the girl in the video.
In my work now I present to groups of people quite often. Nothing more frustrating then people using phones or laptops when you are doing it.

It did seem very apples and oranges, especially in a classroom where she had a table to set it on. She didn't really even need it in tablet mode to start with, but obviously they're making a point. A bigger win is simply showing Windows 8's ability to split the screen to see the textbook and take notes/email.

I would have killed for a Yoga while in business school. We had electronic course packs which you could either print, put on an iPad via a dedicated app, or view them on the school issued lenovo x201 by laying the screen flat and turning it 90 degrees (to see on a single page large enough to read lol).
Now I need to replace the X201, and I'm just waiting for haswell to come to the yoga

Yoga 13 and 11 are probably the "perfect" win 8/rt devices. I own both a surface rt and pro, and a yoga 13. Its much easier to use a yoga on your lap than a surface. I just wish I had the smaller yoga 11 instead of the 13 which can feel a bit large for tablet mode.

The other sticks in people's minds. Hasn't been on TVs in how long, and yet I bet everyone knows what you are talking about. Unfortunately, most "demonstration" ads tend not to stick in people's minds very well.

MS is very active in education here and has been for a long time. I remember my MS providing my college with Exchange servers and free copies of Office XP, WinXP, Win Server 2000 and WinNT for students. All we had to do was fill out forms.

To play devils advocate for a second. She could buy, like three iPads for a Yoga. Or four Acer Iconia Tabs. These devices just don't compare.
I really like the Yoga and looked it up quite recently actually because i wanted to know if it had gone any cheaper. It's still very expensive.
Alright. It's not expensive for a full fledged laptop with touchscreen and awesome design. But compared to the iPad or even other Win8 devices, it's expenisve.

What Im about to tell will sound stupid but it works for me. I have a Sony vaio core2 duo with 4GB of memory, and when I installed Visual Studio 2012 it took a while to load up. I defrag my HD and tried it again, and this time it loaded quickly. My Laptop is older and slower than yours.

VS works just fine on a 4 GB machine. I've even used it on an a netbook with an AMD Atom-equivalent, and it worked fine. As I recall, the first launch after install tends to be slower than subsequent launches, no matter what machine, whether or not you defrag.

I'm not sure where you are looking up yoga prices but if you compare the 128gb ipad with the 128gb yoga, the yoga comes in at 100 dollars more, but with that you know you get an i5 processor, a keyboard, 4gb of ram, the ability to pretty much run any program, and a laptop/tablet that is also thinner and cheaper than the macbook air. Also if you're lucky like me, you jump on lenovo's outlet website and pick up a refurb for 550, when they're lucky to be in stock with them =D

The 64 gb 11.6" Yoga is selling for $450 at best buy. This is the RT version of the Yoga. The Ipad will cost more than that ($599 for 64 gb). The ipad will have a better screen but the yoga's screen is larger, has a built in keyboard and expandable memory. The RT version is good enough for the things they showed her doing. If you need more power and x86 compatability, it will cost more. However, it wouldn't be 3 ipads. It's 2 at most if you choose the 16gb version.

While I love the look-and-feel of the Yoga (it's almost perfect), I don't really see this comparison. I mean, at the end of the day the iPad is still a lot cheaper (even if you buy a keyboard dock for it) and most people are going for that. That said, I wish I had an Yoga 11S. Maybe in a few months...

Well, it's a Microsoft ad so the focus is on the OS and the fact that it works both in tablet and laptop mode. The Yoga wouldn't exist without Windows 8. Sure the iPad is cheaper, but does it double as a serious work computer?

While some people think these ads are silly, I can tell you from experience they are on the nose. A couple of members of my family were always showing off the "cool" stuff they could do with their iPads. My 73 year old mom showed them up by demostrating on her Surface RT, how to split the screen so she could keep playing her game while texting the Grandkids all while YouTube was playing a playlist in the background! [and no I didn't show her how to do that, She's been using Win 8 since the consumer preview!]

I want a haswell hybrid. I am a bit concerned about this mechanism that lets it convert to its yoga modes,but i guess it cant be that fragile..it shouldn't be. :D a light 13" with an amazing screen, good battery life and beautiful form factor is all i need. Too much..??? ;)

I own Yoga 13 with core i5, I have to say that it is really well crafted solid device, the only downside being battery life which is 4 - 4,5 hours at max which is a shame. On the contrary the device is able to get fully charged from dead to 100% in less than hour which is crazy fast.

I shopped the following 3 laptops; MBA, Yoga 13 and ThinkPad Twist, in prep. for school. I went with the Twist. Tablet/Laptop/Tent - HDMI, a SIM slot, USB 3.0 and 1 free year of Office 365. $600 + tax. Very pleased.